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Author: gary_washburn

The Sonics worked out five players Sunday, including Stanford center Brook Lopez along with Kansas’ Sasha Kaun, Louisville’s David Padgett, Boston College’s Tyrelle Blair and Serbia’s Vladimir Gulubovic. Lopez is obviously a candidate for the Sonics’ first-round pick while the remaining four players will be lucky to get into the second round. …

The Sonics have begun their pre-draft workouts and it began with UCLA’s Kevin Love, who was one of four guys to participate today at Furtado Center. Love was joined by North Carolina State’s J.J. Hickson, Ohio State’s Kosta Koufos and Austrailian prospect Nathan Jawai. …

According to ESPN, Stanford’s Brook Lopez has a scheduled workout with the Sonics, which is not surprising, but he may have to knock the ironed dress socks off of Sam Presti to get the Sonics to draft him. History probably doesn’t help Lopez in this case because he is does have some question marks. He is not a can’t miss prospect and left Stanford with several question marks. Although he had a nice season for the Cardinal, he is still a few years away from being a dominant-type center. Given the Sonics still have three 7-footers on their roster, they don’t need another big-man project. It’s going to take time for Lopez to develop into a game-changer. …

According to various reports, the Atlanta Hawks are prepared to name former Sonics GM Rick Sund as their general manager, an interesting move for an organization on the rise but with some intriguing contract issues in the near future. …

Former Chief Sealth High School standout Regina Rogers is planning to transfer from UCLA after the Bruins made a coaching change last month. Rogers, a 6-foot-4 center, averaged 6.3 points and 4.6 rebounds in 31 games (15 starts) for the Bruins. But there have been major changes at UCLA as coach Kathy Olivier resigned in March after 15 years and was replaced by Tennessee assistant Nikki Caldwell. The assistant coach whom recruited Rogers, former Cal standout Tricia Stafford-Odom, also left UCLA. …

I was at the Rip The Cut Tournament for several hours Saturday at Cleveland High School and watched the entire game between the Home Team — Brandon Roy, Jamal Crawford, Will Conroy and Spencer Hawes — and Old School — featuring Eldridge Recasner and Shawn Kemp. And yes, the 38-year-old Kemp was going 1-on-1 with the 20-year-old Hawes in a battle of Seattle-then against Seattle-now. …

The Sonics had a 55.75 chance of landing the first three picks and a 31.86 chance of dropping to fourth and they dropped to fourth. Now you can look at this as really bad luck but I don’t think so. Seattle can get a great player with the fourth pick, but it just makes the scouting process a little tougher because none of the prospects are slam-dunk (sorry for the bad pun) choices. …